I feel so bad for these kids having to deal with remote learning again:

– Schools in the capital area will resume remote learning this week as part of a government campaign aimed at stemming the fast spread of the coronavirus, officials said Sunday.

Under the latest rules, schools in the capital area and overly crowded schools in other parts of the country will roll back fully in-person classes and reintroduce a mix of in-person and virtual classes starting Monday.

Middle and high schools will be able to run at two-thirds capacity, while third- to sixth-grade elementary school classes will be able to run at 75 percent capacity.

Only first- and second-grade elementary school classes will continue to be held fully in-person.

Local education authorities in Seoul, however, adopted tighter rules, forcing elementary schools in the city to further limit in-person classes for third- to sixth-graders to 50 percent capacity, given that first- and second-graders are attending fully in-person classes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

My guess is that Congress is giving the Pentagon flexibility on how to manage troop levels in the Indo-Pacific region without having to focus on maintaining the 28,500 troop level number in South Korea:

The U.S. Congress passed its annual defense budget bill Wednesday with no ban on the reduction of U.S. Forces in Korea, a clause that had been included in the bill for the past four years.  
   
Every year, the U.S. Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to determine the funding for military activities under the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.  
   
The bill was passed by Congress on Wednesday to authorize a total of $777.7 billion in spending for the 2022 fiscal year, namely on strategic competition with China and Russia and on disruptive technologies like hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence, amongst other U.S. defense priorities.   
   
Missing this year, however, was a clause legally restricting the U.S. government from reducing the number of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) from its current level of around 28,500. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest restrictions to impact the public in South Korea:

South Korea will reduce the maximum private gathering size to four people nationwide and restore a 9 p.m. curfew on restaurant and cafe business hours, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Thursday, as the government rolled back its “living with COVID-19” scheme amid surging infections.

Under the new measures, which will be in effect from Saturday until Jan. 2, the use of restaurants and cafes will be restricted to up to four vaccinated people per visit. Those who have not been vaccinated will be able to use the facilities alone or request take-out or delivery, Kim said.

Bars, nightclubs and other entertainment venues will also be subject to the 9 p.m. curfew while movie theaters, concert halls and internet cafes, however, will be able to operate until 10 p.m., Kim said during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This was always a concern that this agency would be used for partisan purposes by whoever was in charge at the time and that is what the opposition is claiming is happening now with the collecting of phone records of conservative media figures:

The state-run anti-corruption office is under fire over allegations that it searched through the phone records of reporters and citizens critical of the organization and the government. 

The agency claims that this was a due, legal process and that it only checked the information of those who had phone calls with some of the people it is investigating. However, there is speculation that this may expand into an illegal surveillance scandal.

When checking phone records, the investigation agency receives personal information including subscriber name, resident registration number and address from the relevant telecommunications company. If the person whose phone records were checked asks the telecommunications company, it has to inform them of the details of when and which investigative agencies have requested data within the past year.

According to local telecommunications companies, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) has asked for the phone records of at least 10 journalists from several conservative news outlets on multiple occasions. 

In detail, the CIO requested the phone records of six reporters from the Chosun Ilbo on 12 occasions from July to October, while it also rifled through the phone logs of three reporters from the Joongang Ilbo 11 times from May to October.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

More restrictions are coming soon on the Korean public. Remember when the government said they didn’t care if daily COVID cases reached 10,000 they would not end the Living with COVID strategy? Well that did not age well:

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases and critically ill patients surged to fresh record highs Wednesday, with the government tipped to restore toughest virus curbs to contain the spread of infections.

The country added 7,850 new COVID-19 infections, including 7,828 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 536,495, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Wednesday’s figure broke the previous record high of 7,174 cases last Wednesday. Daily virus cases have hovered in the range of 4,000-7,000 since early this month, weeks after the country began to ease the distancing rules from Nov. 1.

The number of critically ill patients hit an all-time high of 964, up from the previous record high of 906 on Tuesday.

Deaths from the virus rose by 70, bringing the total to 4,456. The record high death toll was 94 a day earlier. The fatality rate stood at 0.83 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.